April 16, 2024

C-M grapplers win two in opening duals

By Troy Hyde

Colfax-Mingo senior Cameron Warner, bottom, rallied in this match and defeated Woodward-Granger’s Gabriel Yingst by fall during the Tigerhawks’ 42-34 win Tuesday in Colfax. The Tigerhawks also were victorious over Pleasantville, 40-39, in the finale. (Troy Hyde)

COLFAX — The Colfax-Mingo wrestling team got the new season off to a strong start Tuesday night with a pair of wins on the its home mat.

Senior Adam Teed, sophomore Cauy Fitch and freshman Zack Barnes all went 2-0 on the night, and the Tigerhawks claimed narrow wins over Woodward-Granger and Pleasantville to open the 2016 campaign.

The Tigerhawks rallied past Woodward-Granger, 42-34, when they won the final three matches in the dual, and then edged Pleasantville, 40-39, by simply having a full lineup card.

“It’s a good start. It’s been a while since we started the season 2-0 here,” Colfax-Mingo coach Erin Hume said. “It’s our first meet. We are young and made some mistakes. We saw some fight and some guys stepped up, but we have a lot of learning to do still.”

Teed’s 7-5 win at 138 pounds put Colfax-Mingo up 15-12 early against Woodward-Granger. The Tigerhawks rallied two different times in the dual to win by eight points.

Colfax-Mingo trailed 22-15 before a win by fall by senior Cameron Warner and an injury default win by John Bowman put the Tigerhawks up 27-22.

Trailing 34-27, Colfax-Mingo needed wins in two of the final three matches to win its opener. The Tigerhawks did one better when junior Colton Lourens, senior Ben Mead and Barnes all won.

“A lot of people pulled through when we needed them and everyone worked hard tonight,” Teed said.

Lourens won his match at 220 pounds by fall within the first minute of the bout, Mead rallied from an early deficit to win by fall in the third period at 285 and then Barnes won a 6-4 decision at 106 after falling behind early, too.

“I pride our team on conditioning. We work hard. I knew we had six minutes in us,” Hume said. “We just had to show it. We were lucky enough to get some wins that maybe on paper we shouldn’t have won, but that’s wrestling. That’s how it goes sometimes.”

Warner trailed his match 7-2 at 160 before rallying for a key pin.

“That was a huge win for us,” Teed said. “There were a lot of matches like that tonight. Even if we got down, we didn’t quit and staying in the match paid off.”

The Tigerhawks did not match up well with Pleasantville, which start the season with four ranked wrestlers. The Trojans won seven of the nine contested matches but handed the Tigerhawks five forfeit wins.

The key match for Colfax-Mingo (2-0) ended in a loss, but Lourens went the distance against Class 1A No. 8 Chaz Clark (195) at 220. The end result for Lourens was a 7-1 loss, but the Trojans needed bonus points to have a chance to win the dual.

“Colton did a very good job. He helped us win the dual by going six minutes against a ranked state placewinner,” Hume said. “He made a few mistakes but was in that match the entire time.”

Against Plesantville, Teed claimed a 14-1 major decision win at 138 and sophomore Jordan Lescaleet won his match at 152 by fall. The rest of the wins were by forfeit, including Cauy Fitch (113), Barnes (106), Nathan Evans (145), Mollie Greve (120) and Kyla Lampman (126). It was the first career varsity wins for Evans, Greve and Lampman.

“Pleasantville is a very good team. We didn’t match up well with them,” Hume said. ‘It paid to have a full lineup. They beat us on the mat, but you can’t fault us for having more guys.”

Bowman and Cyden Fitch earned their first career varsity wins in the triumph over Woodward-Granger.

Colfax-Mingo returns to the mat at 6 p.m. Thursday when it travels to Iowa Valley to face the Tigers and Tri-County in a South Iowa Cedar League triangular.